Body-centered architectural expressions

As a part of my ongoing research on the value of the body as a means of architectural design, I organised a workshop in collaboration with designer & choreographer Sietske Klooster at the Eindhoven University of Technology. The workshop was the first attempt to discover possible frameworks for a new type of textile architectural design. During the first part of the workshop, we performed a series of individual movements by using the textiles in different ways, to understand and discover what was interesting in terms of spatial perception, both from the insideness and the outsideness. Each of the materials we used, allowed for different connections between the body and the inside in relation to the outside. The spandex lycra fabric revealed how the elasticity of the textile modifies the amount of light that gets through the fabric, giving you the option to personalise the space. I attached some elastic bands to the fabric so that we could wear it and move inside to create a kind of close to the body architectural space. As a more far-field interaction way of experimenting with the materials, we decided to use bamboo sticks as an extension of our arms, to move us inside the scaffolding netting fabric. The action of opening-closing up creates a kind of origami effect, like an envelope shape that shifts from one direction to another. It also gave us an orientational direction feeling once we started to move inside it. The black lines across the fabric together with the bamboo sticks, created that directionality quality on each layer of the fabric that we folded and unfolded. Lastly, we experimented with a lightweight polyester fabric that is especially good for being used as an air filling container. Taking advantage of the air stream while moving ourselves with the fabric attached to our body, we created a volume in motion. It gives you a feeling of being in a fluid space, constantly in movement.For the second part of the workshop, we invited students and researchers from the TU/e to take part in it. After introducing them to the purpose of the workshop, each of them explored individually all the textile materials. Following that, we moved into a group experimentation to perform a series of movements. The result is a series of actions that show the qualities of the relationship between the body, the material, and space, based on how the body interacts with material properties to create architectural expressions.